D&D General D&D Red Box: Who Is The Warrior?

The Dungeons & Dragons Red Box, famously illustrated by Larry Elmore in 1983, featured cover art of a warrior fighting a red dragon. The piece is an iconic part of D&D's history.

WizKids is creating a 50th Anniversary D&D miniatures set for the D&D Icons of the Realms line which includes models based on classic art from the game, such as the AD&D Player's Handbook's famous 'A Paladin In Hell' piece by David Sutherland in 1978, along with various monsters and other iconic images. The set will be available in July 2024.

Amongst the collection is Elmore's dragon-fighting warrior. This character has only ever been seen from behind, and has never been named or identified. However, WizKids’ miniature gives us our first look at them from the front. The warrior is a woman; the view from behind is identical to the original art, while the view from the front--the first time the character's face has ever been seen--is, as WizKids told ComicBook.com, "purposefully and clearly" a woman. This will be one of 10 secret rare miniatures included in the D&D Icons of the Realms: 50th Anniversary booster boxes.

The original artist, Larry Elmore, says otherwise. (Update—the linked post has since been edited).

It's a man!

Gary didn't know what he wanted, all he wanted was something simple that would jump out at you. He wanted a male warrior. If it was a woman, you would know it for I'm pretty famous for painting women.

There was never a question in all these years about the male warrior.

No one thought it was a female warrior. "Whoever thought it was a female warrior is quite crazy and do not know what they are talking about."

This is stupid. I painted it, I should know.

- Larry Elmore​

Whether or not Elmore's intent was for the character to be a man, it seems that officially she's a woman. Either way, it's an awesome miniature. And for those who love the art, you can buy a print from Larry Elmore's official website.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Class screeched to a halt as he analyzed her understanding of the law. Despite literally pages of documentation on the legislative intent of the law’s drafting, he declared her understanding was a perfectly valid interpretation of the text. He then said as soon as the class was over, he had calls to make to the team he’d been working with in order to change the law yet again to eliminate her interpretation from ever getting used in court.[/SPOILER]

These days that is especially easy to do with the volume of music. I think music is also more prone to it (avoiding IP issues in books is a lot easier than songs IMO). George Harrison got writers block worrying about it so much after it happened to him

 

[jayoungr]

If Elmore wanted to make the figure obviously male he probably would have.

This raises the question of what constitutes "obviously enough," though.

But he didn't.

For a 1970s/1980s audience, he almost certainly thought he did.

 

[Older Beholder]

That there were girls that may have seen themselves in the original red box art and been more inspired by it then the usual scantily clad, overly sexualized depictions of woman in fantasy art at the time, is reason enough to create a mini celebrating that.

That it was done unwittingly doesn't take away from it's impact or importance.

 

[Hussar]

For those arguing, here is an example:

Stuart Franklin took the most widely distributed photo of the famous Tiananmen Square "Tank" photo. One man standing up to many tanks. (He is still alive.) If say, Banksy, decided to paint the Tank Man on one side of a building, and then on the other side show the frontal image and make Tank Man a Tank Woman, it is more than probable Banksy's people would contact Franklin prior. If they didn't, would they be outcast? Maybe. Would they simply be heralded as rebels? Maybe. It's a gamble.

These two, WizKids and Elmore, are some of the biggest names in fantasy art. WizKids took a gamble, and it looks like it's paying off.

Here's the thing. If an artist did recreate that image with a woman in that position instead of a man, people would not lose their poop that it was somehow insulting to Stuart Franklin. Now, I would say that a new piece of art with a woman there instead of a man (after all, if you look at the grainy photo, without knowing, it actually could go either way), it would be sending a somewhat different message than the original photo.

And that's okay. That's a good thing. Calling back to older art, and then reinterpreting it, is EXACTLY what you should be doing with art. There is no insult there whatsoever. It's building on the conversation.

((Note, @Scott Christian - I don't think I'm disagreeing with your point. Simply building on it))

So everyone who thinks that this is some sort of "slap" at Elmore really need to do some art studies.

 

[Langy]

For those arguing, here is an example:

Stuart Franklin took the most widely distributed photo of the famous Tiananmen Square "Tank" photo. One man standing up to many tanks. (He is still alive.) If say, Banksy, decided to paint the Tank Man on one side of a building, and then on the other side show the frontal image and make Tank Man a Tank Woman, it is more than probable Banksy's people would contact Franklin prior. If they didn't, would they be outcast? Maybe. Would they simply be heralded as rebels? Maybe. It's a gamble.

These two, WizKids and Elmore, are some of the biggest names in fantasy art. WizKids took a gamble, and it looks like it's paying off.

I'm sorry, what? Why would anyone give a naughty word what Stuart Franklin cared when this was just a real-life event that they happened to photograph instead of something they set up? This isn't a fictional person that Stuart Franklin has any sort of ownership over. This was an actual person protesting an actual action by the actual country of China and putting themselves in actual danger by doing so.

The 'Tank Man' of the photo is unidentified; depicting them as a female would be a little out of the norm since people suspect they were male, but it wouldn't be completely unreasonable and Stuart Franklin's opinion doesn't matter one naughty word bit about it especially since depicting them as a female could be an intentional artistic decision rather than a "we thought they were female all along".

EDIT: OK, this is the first time I noticed ENWorld has a censorship filter that replaces curse words with the phrase 'naughty word'. The fact this happened in a post about a photograph that is famously censored is suitably funny that I'm leaving it in.

 

[MNblockhead]

One major question remains... what gender is the big red dragon?

I assume that it would be like a bearded dragon IRL. If exposed to high temperatures while in the egg, it becomes a reproducing female, even though genetically a male. But I better be careful. I don't want the artist or his fans to be mad at me for misinterpreting his intent.

 

[MNblockhead]

I’m not touching that straight line.

So, you are saying its male? ;-)

 

[Clint_L]

People interpret art differently from what the creator had in mind all the time. That's how art goes. I'm pretty sure the creators of The Babadook weren't trying to invent an LGBTQ+ icon, but stuff happens.

The notion that the creator owns the meaning of a work of art is just incomprehensible to me. The meaning of art is inherently subjective. Knowing the original intent is often interesting and can be a useful angle from which to deconstruct the art, but it doesn't have any more validity than my interpretation, or yours.

 

[MNblockhead]

And now I find myself wondering what the various cultures from say 500BC to 1500AD around the world did in terms of shaving body hair and how it varies between social classes and genders. Were all of the mighty warriors seen in the pictures taught a depilatory cantrips?

Egyption priests plucked every hair from their body, including eye lashes.
Muslims were/are exhorted to shave or pluck armpit and pubic hair.
Just like today, body hair removal was practiced in many cultures in the ancient world, but not all.

I once went down a rabbit hole of cultural practices regarding hair throughout history after reading Lu Xun's "The True Story of Ah Q", an the role hairstyle choices played in that story set in a time of the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the rise of the Republic of China.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Knowing the original intent is often interesting and can be a useful angle from which to deconstruct the art, but it doesn't have any more validity than my interpretation, or yours.

I do think art can be very subjective, but this idea never really sat well with me when I was a student. Yes, we can all take different things from a book. But I feel like Mary Shelley's interpretation of Frankenstein does have more validity than my own.